Category: Garden

The Blue Plate Special

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After several seasons of fighting legions of weeds in this humid climate I have finally come to my senses and begun installing raised beds!  Trying to grow food in this weed infested place is insanity without using RoundUp.

And you know how I feel about Monsanto.

So the logical and more safe solution for us is raised beds.  Bob has been helping me in the garden every Sunday for weeks now.  He has rototilled, and scorched baby weeds with the Red Dragon.

(this is not Bob) 😉

Please click the photo above to be taken directly to the Red Dragon site. 

This is NOT a paid endorsement!  We have had our RD weed burner for many years and just love how well it works.   Unfortunately, we can’t use it in and amongst the veggies…  Hence the new garden plan.

So, here is the layout.

Notations in blue show changes and planned additions.  We have the center and right side construction completed and half planted.  NOTE:  The rotation plan I am utilizing is to help with insect and disease control.  You can see the plan HERE

Want more?  Here is the Garden Organic website: http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/index.php

There is still so much more to be done here.  I have to add more soil, and lay down the wood mulch around the beds. 

The strawberries have been moved and replanted, and the asparagus arrives with the new orchard trees next month!

GOODBY WEEDS!

Hello beautiful!

~*~

What plans do you have for your garden(s)?  What strategies do you use to help you with chores and upkeep?

PLEASE DON’T BE SHY!

SHARE WITH US!

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Photo Friday: looking for weeds in all the wrong places

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For the past two years I have been searching for wild plants to put in my garden.   They are weeds to the locals, and are often bushhogged or just simply tilled under.  Yet I find them attractive and have scouted for accessible sources to bring them home to my gardens…

The tornado storms of April 11, brought some of them to me, but I continued to look for one.  Goldenrod!  I think it is the most beautiful thing to see in fall, and so do my bees!  They drink its nectar to make stinky (think dirty rotten socks) smelling honey, and bring home it’s pollen to feast on over the winter.

So imagine my surprise when my chicken yard exploded in great yellow, plumes of the stuff!

In the photo below you will see several “WEEDS”  That my neighbors would surely not appreciate if growing in their yards.

However we,

the chickens,

wild bees,

my bees,

and butterflies do.   And, for all our sake, I certainly do.

And then there is the Eupatorium capillifolium…

The common name is Dog fennel, and it is sold as a background foliage plant in Europe under the name of Elegant Feather. 

I am sorry, but mine is anything but elegant at the moment.  All spring and summer it is upright and a lovely green, looking quite a bit like asparagus, or culinary fennel.

Usually, by this time of the year it has been cut back down to the ground.  This year things got in the way, and feel I let it get out of hand.  Or did I?

For the past week I have been in search of the lovely perfume in the chicken yard, which is never a place to be confused with “lovely perfume.”  This morning the scent was unmistakably coming from here.  Then I noticed the hum, and realized it was a bee magnet!

Buddy was busy sniffing at something in the bush, and found that out the hard way.  Poor Buddy.

Here is a closeup of the Dog Fennel blooms,

and others!

Goldenrod

Hm, I have forgotten her name. 

Do you know it?

UPDATE:  Thanks to my Facebook friend Jodi, I was able to locate and identify my ‘salvia’ as Scarlet Sage.  You can find out more about this beautiful flower HERE.     Thank you Jodi!

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Saturday Sanpshots: up close and personal

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Yesterday about 6 PM I was out with the geese in the front yard

Honestly, you’d think they hadn’t seen grass before!

~*~

When we moved here I never gave Lantana a thought in my gardening plans.  My reasoning was that in this environment if it would not be perennial,  it was  not worth my time or my interest.

I was wrong…

I had forgotten how quickly it grows, how happy it makes the hummingbirds and butterflies, or how colorful it can be.  It blooms all summer and just looks nice!  So, for 99 cents a plant, this color combination was worth it as a temporary color fix!  These colors remind me of rainbow sorbet on a hot day.

Not remembering if it had a *scent or not I went in for a quick sniff…
and immediately jerked back!  It seems that the quarter sized bloom clusters are a nice place to hang out if you are a miniature crab spider!

Consider this,  if the compound flower is only quarter sized, and you are small enough to grace the surface of only one of the individual flowers, well then,  you are very tiny indeed!  Don’t see the spider?  Click the photo for a closer view!

~*~

*The flowers do not have a scent, however the bush itself is highly aromatic, having a pungent, spicy aroma when brushed against.

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Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award

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Well, much to my surprise, I have just today been nominated for the Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award.  The lovely award was sent by a new blogging friend Terry1954 who can be found here:  http://terry1954.wordpress.com/

Thank you Terry!

As with all awards they come with rules of course…

and the rules are,

  • Give credit to the one who nominated you
  • Tell seven secrets about yourself
  • Nominate seven others

Seven secrets?  Hm, I don’t think I have any more since I started blogging here on WordPress! 😉  But, here goes…

  1. If I could, I would live on five acres and get a pair of Alpacas because I love their little humming noises
  2. I am allergic to carrots and I love them, but not the stomach ache I get when I eat them.
  3. My eyes are Hazel Green. <— (click here to guess the secret.) 😉
  4. I am a perfectionist and have to do it perfect or I can’t  won’t do it at all.
  5. I am going to be completely tearing out my vegetable garden and revamping it between now and next spring… it is going to be redone in raised beds with a goose proof fence all around.
  6. If I had enough money and time I have several friends around the world that I would love to travel and visit with!
  7. I am hopelessly old-fashioned in my ways.

My Nominees, should they choose to accept, are:

  1. Lori at Day by Day the Farmgirl Way  because we have so much in common.
  2. Julie at Wings and Things because we both love geese, and because I know she won’t accept this award (and I secretly covet one of her “Hot Potato” awards that she hands out to people who give her awards.  😉  )
  3. Linda at The Task at Hand  because she is a masterful writer and always surprises me with her stories she weaves.
  4. Jayme at Tales From the Coop Keeper who I know won’t accept it, but I’m sending it anyway.  A funny chicken keeper and gardener who recently lost 100 pounds!  Yup, she get’s it.
  5. C  The Kitchen Gardener over on the Farmy who has more energy and verve for life than anyone else I know.  She accomplishes so many things in her day.
  6. Cindy of On and Over the Hills who is a school librarian five days a week, and finds the time to capture captivating photographs and writes so beautifully about her subjects.
  7. And finally, April at Gluten Free Zen because she makes Gluten Free easy and delicious!  Those who can do what she does are few and far between!

That was harder than it looked, because it was so hard to choose!  I hope you will go and have a visit with each of the nominees.  They are only a few among the many unique, talented, and lovely women I know.

Again, thank you Terry!